Lucky Strikes (10 page)

He wouldn't have left these behind, would he? Not if he was fixing to leave for good. He would've at least taken his cigs?

Question on question, and behind 'em, the question Chester had posed.

What do you even know about this fella?

So that afternoon was about the longest I've passed on this bitter Earth. Couldn't sit, couldn't move. Couldn't stand to be talked to, neither, as Janey learned to her regret. Best I could do was break open a can of succotash round about seven and heat it up on the stove and then leave a plate of it by the mulberry bush where she was hiding. I was too stirred up to have a bite myself.

The night come down slow, and I was giving some thought to Emmett Tolliver's medicine.

Emmett had gifted us a jug of it two years before—when Prohibition was still on—'cause he didn't have cash for a new carburetor. Mama had a way of letting folks pay how they could, so when Emmett brought over the medicine, she took one look and bust out laughing. She'd given up hooch a while back, and me, I took one sniff and nearly lost my supper. “It's safe with us,” Mama said, laughing. She put it in the root cellar, and there it had stayed, mostly, but if there was ever a time I was tempted to sample, it was that night, waiting on Hiram and Earle.

A little past nine, I heard a swell of gravel … the little squeal song our Ford makes shifting into second. Next thing, I was out the door running, with Janey following after.

The truck was just pulling up in front of the house. I didn't even wait for the engine to shut off, I drug Earle right out of the cab and sent him sprawling on the gravel. Give him a kick for good measure.

“What the hell?” he said.

“Don't you
never
do that again!”

“Do what?”

“Drive off in that truck without telling me is what.”

“You wasn't here to tell.”

“I don't give a shit!”

Earle picked himself off the gravel. “We was on a mission, Melia.”

“What kind of fool talk is that?”

Like an answer to my query, Hiram Watts climbed out the passenger's side.

“Reckon you're mighty pleased with yourself,” I said.

“Partly,” he allowed.

“Reckon you thought it was a good idea putting a child behind the wheel of a pickup.”

“He was the nearest to hand.”

“And it never crossed your mind he might kill hisself?”

“It's Sunday. Roads were empty.”

“Plus I'm a natural,” said Earle. “Ask Daddy Hiram.”

“It's true, the boy's a prodigy.”

Now, I've never seen a rhinoceros in real life, but I imagine he'd charge just the way I charged Hiram Watts in that moment. Snorting. Head lowered.

“Know what?” I said. “It was one thing having you up in that room all day doing nothing. That was just irksome. But now you've gone and
done
something, and it's worse. It's the most—the most stupid goddamned…”

Problem was I didn't have a word in mind, so I flailed.

“Irresponsible!”

Earle laughed first. Then Janey.

“I swear I'm gonna smack you both,” I said.

“It's because you sound like a mama,” said Hiram.

“Not
our
mama,” said Earle. “But somebody's.”

“Excuse me, am I the only one here—on this whole goddamned planet—who cottons to how crazy this was? You could've got pulled over or thrown in jail. You could've got driven off the road and left to die.”

“We're here,” said Hiram.

“Well, congratulations. Congratulations on both of you.”

“Geez,” said Earle. “Don't you even want to see it?”

“See what?”

Hiram had already walked round to the back of the truck, and he was pulling down the flatbed gate.

“Earle,” he said. “Keep those headlights on.”

With a wheeze, Hiram hoisted up a burlap bag. Set it in front of the truck, then pulled the burlap down.

The first thing I saw was a desert.

Maybe the finest desert I'd ever seen. The sand the color of a deer's flank, and in the center of the sand a blue pond, and from this pond a camel, drinking. Above the camel was a blue sky, a different blue from the pond. In this sky was a string of clouds, and the clouds spelled …

BRENDA
'
S OASIS

I knelt down. Ran my finger through the sand, waiting for some of it to lift off.

“It's made of porcelain enamel,” said Hiram. “Lasts forever. Easy to clean.”

“They told us you wash it like a car,” said Earle. “Hose it down, and it's brand-new. I'll clean it, Melia, I swear.”

For the first time, I saw the pyramid. Tiny little thing, not much more than a blond shadow in the far corner, but you couldn't mistake it for nothing else.

“This is ours?” I said.

“Free and clear,” said Hiram.

“But we can't afford it.”

“We already have.”

I looked up at him. “Just how'd you manage that?”

“From my Great Heap o' Treasure,” said Earle. “We found a junk dealer out by Flint Hill, and he paid out two dollars and sixty-seven cents. That old loom alone, the one you said was ugly as sin, that fetched us a buck ten. And it was the dealer told us where we could find a sign maker.”

“Who wouldn't mind working on the Sabbath,” said Hiram. “An enterprising artist by the name of Roscoe Barnes. Knocked it out in record time.”

“For two dollars and sixty-seven cents?” I said.

“Well, very near. I'm making up the rest.”

“How?”

“A month's worth of elocution lessons.”

“Elocution?” said Janey.

“It's the art of speaking. Mr. Roscoe Barnes has ambitions for his firstborn son. Wants him to go into law.”

Next thing I knew, Hiram was kneeling next to me. His head even with mine. Both of us studying that sign in the headlights.

“It's yours, Melia. If you want it.”

Don't know why I held back. I suppose it was just that, if the sign stayed,
I'd
have to stay, and all of us. We'd have to stay and live up to that sign, and fight Harley Blevins with all we had in us, and who was to say that was enough?

It was a cool night, I recall—the rhododendron leaves seemed to be curling up at the edges—and I hadn't thought to put on a coat. But when the shiver took me, I shook it out again.

“What you waiting for?” I said. “Let's put her up.”

 

Chapter

TEN

The next day, Hiram showed up for breakfast. Ate a bowl of Wheaties with no milk and washed it down with two cups of black coffee, then went straight back to his room. I didn't see him again till later that morning when I headed back to the store. There he was, setting on the stool behind the counter. Quiet and fixed, like he'd been there all his days.

“What the hell you doing here?” I said.

“What's it look like?”

“Like you're minding the store.”

“So it would seem.”

“Maybe you can explain why.”

“Somebody has to do it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me.”

“Melia, you can't do that
and
pump gas
and
work on the cars.”

“Watch me.”

He leaned back on his stool, propped a heel on the counter. “Melia, can I ask you something?”

“No.”

“When you're out there tending to people's cars, what's to keep them from coming in here and robbing you blind?”

“Our system, that's what.”

In the old days, Mama and me, we'd get so busy out front we didn't always have time to police the store. So we left a Union Carbide mining can on the counter and a plate of small change and a sign that said
DO WHAT
'
S RIGHT
. Mama had another sign that read
GOD IS WATCHING
, but that didn't sit right with Gas Station Paganism, so she switched it out for a pair of eyes, drawn in charcoal on a piece of cardboard. “Let 'em
think
it's God,” she said. “Or their grandma, I don't care.”

But Hiram Watts was not to be swayed. “How do you know this little system of yours works?”

“'Cause there's always money end of the day.”

“How much?”

“I dunno. Six, seven bucks.”

“Maybe you've got more coming.”

“Or maybe not.”

“Do you track the money against your inventory?”

“Ain't got time.”

“So you're busting your ass day in and day out, and you don't even know what's coming in and going out? What's your biggest-selling item?”

“Coffee.”

“After that.”

“I don't know, cigs.”

“Which brand?”

“Luckys. Camels, maybe.”

“If you knew which brand sold the most, you could stock more.”

Oh, I knew he was talking sense, but it was the kind of sense a Harley Blevins would talk.
Business
sense.

“I don't know as I can trust you,” I allowed.

“What do you think's going to happen?”

“Maybe some of my profit'll walk away.”

He come near to smiling.

“Melia, have I stolen a dime from you in all the time I've been here?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then why would I start now?”

“Why does any fool start?”

He give the counter a slow sweep with his hand. “You said it yourself, Melia. Sitting up in that room all day, I'm not doing anyone any good. Tell you what,” he said. “You let me mind the store today, then when you're done, you come back and check the till. I guarantee you will find at least
eight
dollars, if not more. Deal?”

He put out a hand, but still I couldn't bring myself to take it.

“Melia,” he said, “when a man's ready to step up, you ought to let him.”

So after that, I pretty much had to shake on it, but my mind weren't no more at ease. I hung round the store long as I could, and even when the late-afternoon rush come, I kept swinging by to see what I could see. Every time I glanced in, though, Hiram was just where I'd look for him to be, doing what I'd look for him to be doing.

Come quitting time, I went strolling into the store. Wiping the grease off my brow.

“My,” I said. “Starting to get warm out there.”

“That so?” said Hiram.

“Reckon summer's not too far off.”

“I expect you're right,” said Hiram.

We watched each other a spell. Then he opened the register, pulled out the tray, and set it on the counter.

“Count it,” he said.

So I did. Counted it twice, just to be sure. It was the same both times.

Ten dollars and thirty-three cents.

Somehow or other, Hiram Watts had figured how to squeeze four more bucks out of a single afternoon. Dear Lord, I thought, what couldn't we buy with that two bucks? A sack of sugar or a spring chicken or a can of paint. Five pounds of bacon, eight pounds of cheese. A new doorknob, a new grease trap. A month of eggs.

And what if tomorrow brought two
more
bucks? Another twelve by week's end? Another six hundred by year's end? It was more than my poor brain could even twine itself round.

“Well, now,” I said. “I guess this'll do.”

I took the money and stuffed it in the pay pouch. Put the pouch in the safe just beneath the counter.

“We got lima beans for supper,” I said.

“You go on,” he said. “I'll lock up.”

*   *   *

He was up early the next morning, and when the first truck blew in, Hiram was already at his post behind the counter. I don't mind saying I was uneasy. Even as I was pumping the gas, my eyes kept ticking over to the store, watching as each of my truckers traipsed inside … and then stopped stone dead.

By now, I should say, we'd got Hiram looking very close to human. Earle had biked over to Old Man Purdy's estate sale and brung back an old linen suit and a pair of denim trousers and a couple of gray denim shirts. And Hiram was doing his bit for the cause—shaving every morning, brushing his teeth every night, bathing at least twice a week. What I'm saying is, he didn't look like the feller who'd just rolled off a load of coal.

So I reckon what pulled those truckers up short was they'd never seen a face quite like Hiram's. So grave, I mean, and craggy and beaten on, with that one eye wandering wheresoever it listeth.

Now, truckers don't scare easy, but they are fools for habit, so if you throw a wrench at 'em, they need time to make it right in their heads. I recall Joe Bob staggering out like the Last Days had come.

“Who's that feller?” he gasped.

“My daddy.”

“Huh.” Joe Bob swung his head back toward the store. “He don't take after you.”

Merle, he was thrown all out of whack. “It don't seem right, Melia. It's very near to wrong, I'm telling you.”

As for Warner … well, he strode straight to the counter, grabbed himself some coffee, and stormed out again. It weren't till he was driving off that he leaned out the window and said, “You sure about this one?”

“I reckon,” I said.

“See you next week.”

I guess that's when I knew it'd be okay.

It helped that Hiram met them halfway. Took time to learn all their names, their ways. He knew Warner liked his coffee bitter and hot and Joe Bob liked it cool enough to do the backstroke in. Elmer loved a sprinkle of cinnamon, Billy Ray wanted shredded-wheat biscuits for dunking. Merle took tea—two bags of Lipton, steeped for three minutes. And Frank? He didn't care what was in the cup so long as there was a couple inches left over for Johnnie Walker.

Hiram got it down so tight, he was filling their orders soon as they drove up. “Why, it's waiting for me every dang time,” said Joe Bob. “Now that's what I call
service
.”